What Shall I Wear?
Ephesians 6:10-13 and Ephesians 6:14-20
August 25, 2024
How many times have you walked in the closet and just gave a blank stare at the clothes hanging there? What to wear?
Usually what we are doing or where we are going will help determine which clothes we choose. If you are like me, I have specific clothes in which I do yard work that I would never wear to the church office or to visit someone.
On the other hand, neither would I wear this robe to do my yard work.
So it seems there is a process by which we choose to wear our attire for the day, an event, or a special occasion.
When I first completed the Trained Ruling Elder program, I was not comfortable putting on a robe and a stole. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the robe and stole. I thought they were beautiful, however, I did not believe that I was worthy to wear the robe, after all I’m not an ordained pastor. I didn’t complete four years of college and theology to be credentialed to wear the robe, or so I thought. After all, my four year degree is a BBA in Marketing.
My TRE classmates seemed to be wearing them just fine, but I resisted, and felt much better in just wearing my black clothes when I was in the pulpit. As they were commissioned to churches, they would come in their robe and stole attire and tease me about not having my robe yet.
A few years later, I was lovingly offered my mother-in-law’s black robe. Being a College Professor at VSU, Dick’s mother owned a black robe that she used at graduation ceremonies, and the family offered me the robe to wear when I preached.
Now this attire meant something to me because it was something my mother-in-law had worn, and the family loved me enough to offer it to me. They certainly saw me as worthy, and wanted to support me in my new journey as a pastor.
So I took that robe, and modified it to be able to wear every time I was in the pulpit, and I never wore it that I did not think of her. I was clothed in all the love she had shown me as my mother-in-law, and all the love of my husband’s family for accepting me for who I was.
Later, at the urging of a pastor friend, I upgraded that robe to the one I wear now. I was able to do that because it was explained to me that in wearing this robe, I am arming myself for the task at hand. The job that I have been called to do by God. It identifies me as a Pastor and the respect that comes with that title.
I don’t wear it because it is comfortable or pretty or maybe even practical. I wear it so that people know that when I step into this sanctuary and into this pulpit, I am here to do God’s will and God’s work. I am here to shepherd this congregation with all the armor of God and the gifts that have been provided to me by God. I am here to represent who God is and for that I am worthy because I am a child of God chosen by God for this job. This robe represents the armor of God.
Paul tells us to put on the armor of God, and not just part of it, but the WHOLE armor of God so that we can stand firm against evil.
Paul gives us a full description of exactly what the armor is that we are to put on, and I have asked our favorite in house model to share with you the whole armor of God that she has put on this morning.
A Belt of Truth. Finding “the truth” means understanding and believing all that God has revealed to us through his inspired Word.
A Breast Plate of Righteousness. The idea of living in a right relationship with God, others and all of creation.
Shoes to Proclaim Peace. A sense of well-being, completeness, soundness, health, safety and prosperity through Christ Jesus.
A Shield of Faith. A belief and trust in God and his promises, even when God and his work cannot be seen physically.
A Helmet of Salvation. The act by which we are saved from our sin through the death and resurrection of Christ.
Take the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. All the things that God has said, written in the Bible, the good news of the gospel, and all that God is still speaking to us today.
With all of these things, pray in the Spirit and keep alert so that you can humbly stand firm against evil. (Thank you Lauralee!!)
When considering God’s armor, Julian of Norwich said this:
I saw that He is to us everything that is good
and comfortable for us: He is our clothing
that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all
encloseth us for tender love, that He may never
leave us; being to us all-things that is good.
I’m sure many of you remember a few years back the movie titled, “The Devil Wears Prada.” It was all about fashion and style and clothes. The girl in the movie that took the job as assistant to the Devil herself would do anything to be on the “inside” of that fashion. She wanted to learn everything that she could, and even though she was often looked down on by her boss, she kept coming in and kept striving to be better in her knowledge of “fashion,” to be accepted by the fashion crowd, even when it cost her a boyfriend and time with her family.
She gave up everything for the fashion for which she thought she wanted to be a part of, and thankfully, in the end, she realized it was not the clothes that made her or defined who she was. It was her actions.
When we hear the word “fashion,” we usually think of the big names like Prada and Gucci and the like. However, in her book “Wearing God,” Lauren Winner, an ordained Episcopal priest, states that when we look at “fashion” as a verb, it means to mold or to shape.
Potters fashion clay into a pot or bowl. Artists fashion paint into beautiful pictures. And God fashioned us in his image.
Winner goes on to say that before we used fashion as a noun representing clothes, it was a verb used for making or shaping something, and the word “fashion” eventually evolved into the noun for apparel because we love changing our clothes and trying out different looks because it allows us to play a different kind of self. Just like Laurelee likes to model her joyful fashions on special occasions.
Winner writes, “If to change clothes can be to change one’s sense of self; if to change clothes is to change one’s way of being in the world; if to clothe yourself in a particular kind of garment is to let that garment shape you into its own shape — then what is it to put on Christ?”
While we are sometimes identified by the clothes we wear, and even when we share a bond with others in the clothes we wear, it is the armor of God that is the most important thing that we can choose to wear.
When we think of taking off our outer clothes that people see, what does God see in our disposition? Are we clothed in actions that reflect love and grace, or does our disposition show something different.
We can say all day long who we are, we can wear something that signifies our importance to others in wearing a suit and tie, a tuxedo and gown, but it is what we find under those outer garments that reflects our true self.
Have we taken off the old garb of hatred and division, and put on the garments of love shown by Christ? What does our disposition look like to others around us?
Winner says that “On Paul’s terms, Jesus is not the kind of clothing that creates social divisions but the kind of clothing that undoes them. Jesus is not a Vineyard Vines dress or a Barbour jacket; He is the school uniform that erases boundaries between people. Or at least that is the kind of clothing that Jesus wants to be. When those of us clothed in Him trespass boundaries in His name, we allow Him to be that school uniform; when we put up walls in the name of Jesus, we are turning the Lord into an expensive designer dress.”
So how do we remove the clothes that set us apart from other people and instead wear God? Are we wearing the clothes that participate in the holy and boundary breaking that Paul speaks of in Galatians?
God clothed Adam and Eve in Genesis, equipping them for what they were to face outside the Garden of Eden, and God equips us today. God equips us and gives us what we need to equip others to be disciples, even sometimes when we are not an ordained pastor with a four year degree in theology.
So when I look back on that first black robe that I was given by Dick’s family, it wasn’t just a piece of black clothing, it was what God had given her to help equip me into being the disciple that I was called to be. It’s not the robe that makes my disposition, it is the love that was handed to me through the process, and the whole armor of God that I put on that was secured in Christ’s blood for me.
Each day when we look in our closet to consider, “What shall I wear?” I hope we choose Christ every day.
(Silent Reflection)
PRAYER OF THE PEOPLE and LORD’S PRAYER
A Prayer by Anselm of Canterbury:
Awake, I beseech thee, O my soul, and let the fire of
a heavenly love be kindled in thy heart, and wisely
consider the beauty which Thy Lord God hath bestowed
upon thee…For doth not He who maketh thee to abide in Him,
and hath condescended to dwell in thee, clothe thee, cover thee,
adorn thee with Himself? As many of you, saith the Apostle, as have
been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.
What praise, what thanksgiving wilt thou rightly
bestow upon Him, who hath clothed thee with so
great beauty, exalted thee to so great honour, that
thou canst say with all joy of heart,
The Lord hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.
It is the highest joy of the angels of God to contemplate Christ,
and lo, of His boundless condescension He so far inclineth unto thee,
as to be pleased to clothe thee with Himself.
Lord, let us soak up these words of prayer by Anselm into with every breath of our being so that we are daily reminded to take up the armor of God daily, and to put it on as we live in truth, righteousness, peace, and faith wearing the helmet of salvation and carrying the Sword of the Spirit, the very Word of God. It is our gift from you, and our honor to wear it. Hear now our prayer as we pause to remember those who suffer from all manner of illness and who have asked for our prayers________________________
Lord of healing, touch each one of these if it be your will and give them peace as we join together in the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, Our Father, who art in heaven……